Donald Trump called Wednesday for the resignation of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, charging that the 83-year-old judge’s “mind is shot” after she branded him a “faker.”
It is exceptional for a US Supreme Court justice to speak openly about politics and their political preferences.
But Ginsburg dropped all pretenses of reserve in two interviews she gave recently and which have caused a sensation.
“He is a faker,” Ginsburg said Monday of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in an interview with CNN.
“He has no consistency about him. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment,” said the Brooklyn-born justice, a diminutive but tough-as-nails figure who has earned the nickname “Notorious RBG.”
“He really has an ego,” she said. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, hit back Wednesday at the leader of the court’s progressive wing, suggesting she is getting senile.
“Justice Ginsburg of the US Supreme Court has embarrassed all by making very dumb political statements about me. Her mind is shot – resign!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
The Supreme Court normally has nine justices but has been one short since the conservative Antonin Scalia died in February.
There is an even tie between conservatives and liberals, who include Ginsburg. Worried that a court dominated by conservatives could now tip in the liberals’ favor, President Barack Obama’s Republican foes in the Senate have refused to vote on his nominee to replace Scalia, Merrick Garland.
They insist the decision must wait until after voters choose Obama’s successor in November. Ginsburg told The New York Times in an interview published Sunday that the stakes in the 2016 election were positively huge.
“I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president,” she said.
“For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that,” said the judge.